Best summer dining with Terry Durack: The Boathouse

The Boathouse Palm Beach

IT'S all a bit too gorgeous, with its big beach umbrellas, decked terrace and sarong-and-sunnies crowd lapping up the views.

There are no bookings, so it's the quick or the dead around here, and regulars know to delegate one member to guard the table, and another to stand in line, order, pay and take a number.

The big order is for the excellent beer-battered fish and chips — local flathead and thick-cut, lightly battered chips tucked into in a suitably chic wooden box.

It's the sort of summer lunch that makes you say a quiet thank-you to those capricious gods for allowing you to live in Sydney.

Breakfasts are of the bacon-and-egg-roll variety, with the northern beaches' best coffee coming from the coffee hatch.

The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide says:

“On a sunny day there are few better places to kick back than at this stylishly weathered shack right on Pittwater."

This summer's hot order: Marinated tuna steak with white-bean salad and salsa verde, $30.

Governor Phillip Park, Palm Beach.

Breakfast and lunch daily, no bookings. About $80 for two, plus drinks.

Phone 9974 3868, theboathousepb.com.au.